Copyright Shaw Local Enewspapers
The graduation rate at Rock Falls High School continues to surpass the rate across Illinois and at Sterling and Dixon Public Schools in 2025. The annual Illinois school report cards 2025 data was released Oct. 30. The report shows how schools are performing across several areas and calculates their overall performance. Statewide, the data shows that Illinois public schools hit a record-breaking high in graduation rates. The Illinois rate for 2025 is 89% which surpassed its 2024 rate of 87.7%, but even higher than that was Rock Falls Township High School at 92.4%, the report shows. Rock Falls’ rate also surpassed Dixon and Sterling high schools for the second year in a row and is up from 91.2% in 2024, according to the data. Rock Falls High School Principal Mike Berentes attributed the school’s high rates to additional resources implemented a few years ago to help students who are struggling or behind, in a previous interview with Shaw Local. He said one of those resources is a credit recovery program, where students who are missing credits needed to graduate can earn them back by working with teachers before and after school and during study hall. “Our teachers and staff have been doing a really good job at identifying students early,” Berentes said. Sterling High School, while slightly behind Rock Falls, also beat the state’s rate with a 91% four-year graduation rate in 2025, up from 86.2% in 2024, the data shows. The lowest, but most improved, was Dixon High School with a 2025 rate of 88.9%, up from 82.1% in 2024, the report shows. “We’ve had a really big push the last couple years on [improving] daily attendance. That’s really where it starts. When you do that consistently over four years, ultimately, it should have a positive impact on your graduation rate, which we’re kind of seeing,” Dixon High School Principal Jared Shaner told Shaw Local. Chronic absenteeism is steadily improving In 2024, nearly half - 42.2% - of all DHS students were considered chronically absent, meaning they’ve missed at least 10% of school days with either excused or unexcused absences. It’s improved in 2025 with a rate of 36.2%, the report shows. Shaner said in the 2024-25 school year, it began utilizing the Regional Office of Education No. 47’s NEXUS program that works with students’ families to get to the root cause of attendance issues. That year, the school also started taking more of an incentive-based approach. Administration set up attendance contracts with struggling students, offering some type of reward for consistent attendance, gave awards for perfect attendance, and tied attendance to students’ ability to opt out of final exams and attend special events like homecoming and prom, Shaner said. “We hope that we can continue those things and even make more improvements in the future,” Shaner said. Chronic absenteeism also decreased from 2024 at Sterling High School, with a 20.2% rate in 2025, but it increased at Rock Falls High School, with 24.7% in 2025 compared to 19.9% last year, according to the data. Out of the three high schools, Rock Falls has the lowest rate of chronic absenteeism in 2019, with 8.9%. SHS was 21.7% in 2019, and DHS was 22.6%, the data shows. In all grade levels, students across Illinois have shown progress with chronic absenteeism, but it is still above its levels before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the rate has been on a steady decline since 2022 and has dropped to 25.4% in 2025, according to the data. At Dixon Public Schools, the district’s overall rate decreased from 2024 to 28.1% in 2025, but it’s still above its 2019 rate of 18.3%, according to the data. The district rate for Sterling Public Schools has been steadily declining since 2023 and dropped to 15.7% in 2025. It’s still above, but is getting close to its 2019 rate of 14.6%, the data says. The overall rate for Rock Falls ESD 13 is also dropping, but is still much higher than in 2019. Its 2025 rate is 22.9%, down from 23.8% in 2024, but up from 9.6% in 2019, the data says. That district only includes students in grades kindergarten through eight. Rock Falls High School is the only school in its separate district. Overall performance The Illinois school report measures individual schools and district performance using scores in math, English language arts, and science proficiency rates; the percent of ninth graders on track to graduate in four years, graduation rate, and chronic absenteeism; and the school’s climate survey. Based on that number, schools and districts are given a summative designation of either exemplary, commendable, targeted, or comprehensive. The top 10% of all Illinois schools are exemplary, while the bottom 5% are comprehensive. The majority of schools are designated as commendable. Schools that are performing well but with skewed scores due to one or more underperforming student groups are labeled targeted. The report designates all Dixon Public Schools as commendable, which is “a good accomplishment for us,” Shaner said. Specifically for Jefferson Elementary School, grades two and three, which was ranked targeted in 2024. All of Sterling Public Schools, along with Rock Falls’ high school, middle school, and Dillon Elementary School, received commendable designations. They also ranked that in 2024, according to the report. The only school where performance seemed to decline was at Merrill Elementary School, grades three to five, in Rock Falls Elementary School District 13, according to the report.
